No strawberry left behind

When I realized that I still had almost a dozen jars of strawberry jam in the freezer, I had to come up with other uses for the two boxes of strawberries we picked. Well.... it wasn't that hard really.

After pureeing strawberries with a bit of simple syrup in the Vitamix it was easy enough to make popsicles. A nice treat for these hot summer days.

You HAVE to have strawberry shortcake.

I like milk and whipped cream on mine.

And a new use for strawberries for me... frozen strawberry drink. All I did was blend strawberries, ice and simple syrup in the Vitamix and viola! A refreshing, delicious beverage.

We were having them everynight until I ran out of strawberries. No problem using up berries at our house.

Fall Grape Juice

I canned a few jars of homemade grape juice. Isn't the color gorgeous? They look like quart sized lava lamps.

The grapes came from my parents' vines. Ignore the pug foot. The pugs didn't help me pick at all, so I don't know why they are trying to get into the picture.

The grapes may not have come from our own garden but I couldn't help using these stickers made with this embosser we ordered almost a year ago. How cute are they?

I'm going to post the grape juice recipe here again. It's just so darn easy and tasty.

Vanilla milk ice cubes for cold brew coffee

Coffee ice cubes are such a OF COURSE kind of idea. Saving iced coffees from becoming watered down all summer long. I was thinking about coffee ice cubes when I had a brainstorm. Why not milk ice cubes! They would keep your coffee cold and add cream to it as they melted.

I thought it was such a good idea. I exclaimed to Aaron - "Why hasn't anyone else doen this yet?!" He kinda snickered... "Oh I don't know... frozen... ice... cream. Ice cream. Never heard of that before."

No, no. Not the same thing.

I decided to make a batch using half and half and even some vanilla for flavoring. They looked nice when I popped them out of the ice cube tray.

But they were just okay. There seemed to be little bits of curdle come off of them. And I had to wait for them to melt, because I certainly am not going to drink straight up coffee.

It wasn't a raging success, but I'm not giving up yet.

Cold brew options

I have a pretty good method for making cold brew coffee, so I didn't really need this can of Grady's Cold Brew, but the can totally sold me.

You can also get the concentrate in a bottles or sign up for a coffee club to keep a steady stream of caffiene shipped to your home.

Look at these instruction illustrations on the can! So good.

You can follow Grady's Cold Brew on Facebook | Twitter | Instagram

Speaking of liquid cold brew concentrate in a bottle I found this Muddy Waters Cold Brew at Wegmans. It is made right here in Rochester! It's pretty good too. It's a nice option with the #shoplocal bonus.

I am curious if they are affiliated with the Muddy Waters Coffee House that used to be in the South Wedge, but I haven't figured that out yet.

They are on Facebook and Twitter.

Horchata

While I was in Vegas years ago, my friends Walt and Peggy turned me on to horchata at their favorite Mexican restaurant. Unfortunately every time I go to a local Mexican restaurant, they "didn't make horchata that day".

Being made from rice, I figured I could try my hand at making it myself.

I used this recipe and it was a piece of cake with the Vitamix. The horchata was the perfect pairing with grilled quesadilla and Mexican corn. I'm going to try some of the other recipes I found for a taste comparison.

Birthday Frap - I hardly knew ye

A couple weeks ago, I started noticing pink colored Starbucks frappuccinos in people's Instagram feeds. They were being referred to as "Birthday Frappuccino". I blathered on to Aaron about them endlessly until he finally said we should go and get one.

We asked our local barista if they still had them and she said sure. What I picked up at the end of the counter however was topped with regular white whipped cream. "Oh. We are all out of the raspberry whipped cream" she told us. We tried again at another Starbucks and the same thing happened.

I checked online (something I should have done sooner) to find that yes, the Birthday Frap is supposed to have raspberry whipped cream but the Birthday Frap was a limited time drink from March 26 to 30 to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Starbuck's frappuccino.

You might say that the only thing I was missing from the Birthday Frap was the raspberry whipped cream but let's stop and think about that. Raspberry whipped cream!

Cue sad trombone.

Ball Jar Mason Jar Accessories - Infused Water

Sometimes I really think Martha reads my blog. (I can dream can't I?) A few months ago there was an article in Living about... Ball Jars! I am now waiting for something on pie pans... (which are the new mason jar)

You know what I like as much as mason jars? Mason jar ACCESSORIES. I found these mason jar straw lids and water infuser at Wegmans this summer.

The straw lids were perfect for my summer iced coffee.

And the infuser helped me increase my water intake. I really got into coming up with creative fruit combinations. Mango and blueberry.

Mint and strawberry. So refreshing!

The Ball Jar website lists some combos too. Like... blackberry sage, pineapple mint, cucumber orange and watermelon basil.

BuzzFeed has a great list of fruit infusion combos too.

Sweet & Cute Coffee Syrup for Coffee Milk in a new jar mug

Being friends with Tina, the creator of Sweet & Cute treats has it's perks. I get samples of the products that she is working on. Of course this can be her undoing because I become dependent on some of them and then she has to keep a steady stream of sugar coming my way. The latest is her Sweet & Cute Coffee Syrup. I like it mixed in with fresh, cold Pittsford Farms Dairy milk. It's to the point I can't carry through my morning without this sweet delightful elixer.

Luckily I just got a larger sized mason jar and Mason Bar lids at Peppermint so I can take an extra large serving of coffee milk with me to work!

Raspberry mint lemonade & popsicles

Using up some of those raspberries we picked in a raspberry mint lemonade. I grew the mint!

The vitamix pureed those raspberries right up. In hindsight I should have strained out the seeds. It was still delicious and refreshing.

Then I used the leftover lemonade to make popsicles. Pretty tart but Aaron loves sour stuff so he is gobbling these up.

Coffee grinder

When I got Aaron this Red Rooster coffee grinder for Christmas it may have been a little self-serving. I hate the noise of the electric grinder and really, this is way cuter too.

It makes a really good cup of coffee too, so win-win.

Winter Klout Perks

There have been some great Klout perks lately. I was really interested to try this Oregon Cafe Mocha Latte espresso concentrate. It's so easy to make - 3/4 cup of hot milk with 1/4 cup of the syrup, and tastes so good! I heated my milk in my Aeroccino so my milk was nice and frothy. I like that it uses real cane sugar also.

Along the similar lines I also got a jar of chocolate Hershey's spread. What's not to like? Ooey gooey chocolate spread? I used mine on a banana. Delightful! I think it would be great on toast too.

With this bitter cold winter, what could be more appreciated than Ricola cough drops? I saw these everywhere when we were in Switzerland.

The singing box was a treat to open, but it wasn't needed to convince me of how affective Ricola cough drops are. The extra strength are so strong, I can't hold one in my mouth until it disolves!

I was thrilled when Ricola sent another batch of cough drops. I promised some for my dad to try, now I have plenty to share.

Hot chocolate & marshmallows

It's hot chocolate season. When I saw these peppermint marshmallows at Pittsford Farms Dairy, I knew they would go perfectly with my William Sonoma peppermint hot chocolate.

That put me on a marshmallow kick. I found a bag of vanilla flavored marshmallows shaped like snowmen.

And Gingerbread marshmallows - that taste like gingerbread.

These are tasty enough to eat right out of the bag.

7-Eleven Day: free Slurpees!

It's 7/11 and that means free Slurpees at 7-Eleven! I got watermelon flavor.

Aaron got banana!

More CSA strawberry goodness

We got another basket of strawberries in our CSA share this week. What goes great with strawberries? Rhubarb. Aaron LOVES rhubarb and has two big rhubarb plants in the backyard. I "borrowed" a couple stalks to make this homemade strawberry rhubarb soda.

It's pretty easy. You just make a strawberry rhubarb simple syrup and mix it with sparkling water.

Strawberry Rhubarb Simple Syrup

1 cup water

1 cup sugar

2 cups cup strawberries

1 cup chopped rhubarb

Boil it all together and let it simmer for 10 to 15 minutes. Mix it with sparkling water to taste.

The soda only used half the strawberries, so I raided Aaron's rhubarb again and made filling for strawberry rhubarb pocket pies.

Add a nice tall glass of cold milk and he didn't complain about his depleted rhubarb supply too much.

Running on caffeine

The days are flying by, I am so busy at the show. It also helps that I am hopped up on chocolate and super caffeinated cola! You can read more about how this happened here.

Chocolate Tea

I just spotted a display of The Republic of Tea's new Cuppa Chocolate Teas. Tea? Chocolate? I was game. I got a can of the Strawberry Chocolate. It's not overwhelmingly chocolate... or strawberry for that matter but it was just enough to be interesting. Two thumbs up.

There are several other flavors, banana, peppermint and red velvet. I pretty keen to try the banana chocolate next.

Hey Shuga! Organic Sugar Cane Syrup

One of the purchases I made at Greentopia was Hey Shuga! - an all natural, organic sugar cane syrup and the company is located right here in Rochester.

I drink a lot of hot tea and that involves a lot of stirring and stirring to disolve my sugar cubes. I also like to make iced tea in the summer and for that I make simple syrup. I think Hey Shuga will be a good subsititute. i am thinking it would be perfect for iced coffee too... especially since they are coming out with flavored versions like vanilla and hazelnut.

Jarritos Mexican Cola

Jarritos kindly sent me another sample of soda! I had a big Jarritos tasting party last summer. This time it is Mexican Cola flavor. This time I had my peeps over for a Girls Night Out to taste test.

Everyone commented that it reminded them of soda they had as a kid. That's probably because this Jarritos Mexican Cola has real sugar... no high fructose corn syrup here. We all agree that real sugar is better.

Next someone mentioned that it had a lemon undertone which I started to agree with until someone else said grape and then I totally tasted grape.

We all thought it was tasty and polished off both bottles.

To go with the soda I made grilled Mexican corn (recipe here).

I also made chicken quesadillas on the grill. I burnt the first one before I had a bright idea. I put my Pampered Chef pizza stone over the Weber grill. That was perfect. Each quesadilla after that baked perfectly.

Inside was shredded rotiserrie chicken, pepper jack cheese, cheddar cheese, scallions and mushrooms. Just the right accompaniments to our Jarritos.

There are a lot of cool things on the Jarritos Facebook page. There is a scavenger hunt with prizes and a store locator.

I feel like I see Jarritos everywhere now! On the last episode of True Blood, Lafayette is having a bottle of Jarritos in a cafe!